Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha. An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - страница 35

First, I will consider happiness in the context of scopes of the Three Trainings. As training in morality is such a vast subject, the ways we can find happiness is also a vast subject, and becomes interesting primarily in comparison to the other two training’s scopes, those of concentration and wisdom. The common denominator of the concentration

attainments is that we learn to get ourselves into states of consciousness that are some mixture of blissful and peaceful, as well as increasingly spacious and removed from our ordinary experience. These can be a source of happiness that is far more intense and reliable than the happiness found in the ordinary world. Being able to access as much happiness and peace as we wish when we wish reduces our anger at the world from not providing us with these, making us less needy and greedy. There is also the happiness that comes from seeing the true nature of the sensations that make up our world and thus attaining to stages of realization or enlightenment.

There are three areas of renunciation that correspond to the scopes of the Three Trainings. We can renounce aspects of the ordinary world

The Three Trainings Revisited

by simply abandoning these things. We can quit our job, leave our relationship, stop smoking crack, and shave our heads. We can try to be less angry or fearful. We can work on our communication skills, trying to avoid lying and slander. Some of these may be easier than others, and some of these may be helpful and some not, but the important point here is that these sorts of forms of renunciation are, for better or for worse, renunciation of aspects of the ordinary world within the context of the first training’s scope. Or, we can renounce renouncing these things and do them. Renunciation is a very arbitrary concept when applied to the first training.

There is also the renunciation that comes from being willing and able to attain the temporary concentration attainments. We are willing to spend some time removed from the ordinary experience of the world and enter into states where the ordinary world becomes more and more removed from us. It is usually not that hard to convince people that there may be occasions when having the ability to renounce the ordinary world in this way for some period of time could be advantageous. We can all imagine taking a little bliss break and finding it helpful in some appropriate context.

There is also the type of renunciation associated with insight practices, in which one is willing to break from the gross conceptual way of working that is helpful for the scope of the ordinary world, break from the more restricted and refined conceptual way of working that is necessary to attain stable altered states of consciousness, and move to perceiving sensations individually and directly, seeing the true nature of them. This is a much more subtle and sophisticated form of

renunciation than the other two, and it is not always easy to convince people that having this option open to them is a good idea.

While “enlightenment” generally sounds very appealing, it suddenly sounds strange in the context of seeing all sensations as being utterly transient, a source of pain if we make artificial dualities out of them, and not self. People often mix up the three kinds of renunciation, the most common error being that they imagine that they must “give up” aspects of the first two trainings (a happy life and fun concentration states) in order to renounce them in the insight way, in which they see the true nature of the sensations that make up these things. They imagine that 53

The Three Trainings Revisited

they must give up their job or relationship in order to see its true nature, or imagine that they must not enter into high states to see their true nature. This basic conceptual error causes many of the problems that people find on the spiritual path. That brings me to the three forms of suffering.

First, there is the form of suffering that the Buddha is most famous for talking about, ordinary suffering, the standard list including such things as birth, sickness, old age, death, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. These are ordinary forms of suffering that we can try to mitigate as best we can by ordinary methods, i.e. by working within the scope of the first training, i.e. the conventional world. I am a big fan of trying to find worldly happiness so long as we do not neglect the importance of the other two trainings. There is also the form of suffering relating to the scope of the second training that comes from being limited to our ordinary state of consciousness, with our only way out coming from sleep or the use of chemical substances. We yearn for bliss that is not so bound up in things like whether or not we get a good job, for experiences like those found in the concentration states. Our minds have this potential, and the failure to be able to access these states at times when doing so would be helpful and healthy is a source of bondage. I am a big fan of being able to attain these wonderful states so long as we do not neglect the other two trainings.